The Maelstrom Trilogy: Part 2 - Nexus Collapsing
Author's note This is the sequel to Maelstrom Rising, the first of the series. Please read that first. Thank you. Chapter One Hello! I am Alec Warper, The First Minifigure. I am going to tell you the second installment of The maelstrom Trilogy. I'll start after the council of the Leaders. Young Alec Warper II had told Duke, Overbuild, and Storm how he had become a stromling, every Paradox minifigure had became a stromling, and how smashing would result in being unable to rebuild. Naturally, he had blamed Paradox. Long story short, every member of Paradox, from Vanda Darkflame, to Rutger Hemogoblin, were banished from the Nexus Force and the Tower. They were all put on the Paradox Koi, to never return to land on the Nimbus System again. We bombed the remains of the Avant Gardens Labs, and sent an attack unit to destroy the Paradox Refinery. We were going to take out all of Forbidden Valley, due to its major tie-ins to Paradox, but we simply put a blockade around it allowing all those who wished to leave to leave on the Paradox Koi, to do so. The area of the Tower that was Paradox-Owned, were replaced with labs to study the Maelstrom, but as a place for all three factions. But now the Maelstrom was stronger than ever! And we were weaker than ever! Soon, Duke Exeter said that the Last Shard of Pure Imagination, (other the small shard in my staff) had to be moved. It was at the bottom floor, but we all knew how risky that was. The platform holding the shard was moved to the top of the Tower, where a safe was built. The safe was so strong, that the nexus of Imagination light went out. If anyone needed Imagination, they had to go the top of the Tower and direct the flow of it for a second into their imagination backpack. At this point, we were so worried about the safety of the Last Shard of Pure Imagination, that we would not let it flow free. This was a big mistake. Chapter Two I was delivering a message. Not an unusual task for me, but never between two relatively close Minifigs. I ran into Duke Exeter's room. The Hologram of Crux Prime had been turned off. Duke's generally cheerful smile had vanished. He looked as if he had seen someone die. "Duke Exeter! I have a message for you. But first, explain what has made you so upset!" I told him. "My fellow Minifigure," replied Exeter, "You may not know this, but yesterday, I gave the order for the Nexus Force to retreat. We have stopped fighting the Maelstrom. The Nexus Koi has a cabin for every minifig in the Nexus Force, so naturally it was the ship to collect every minifig in the Nimbus System. "The ship was to take every Minifig to Nexus Tower to help protect the Last Shard of Pure Imagination. It had every minifigure from the Nexus Force who wasn't in the Tower on its decks. They were flying over Crux Prime, when it all went wrong. Something shot the ship down. It crashed on the surface of Crux Prime, and was quickly destroyed by Stromlings. There were no survivors. The Nexus Force now has 106 members." I couldn't believe it! The once powerful Nexus Force had been reduced to 106 Minifigs! "Is-" I stammered, "Is there any knowing of who or what shot the ship down?" "No." was Duke's reply. "Now are you going to give me the message or not?" I gave him the message. He opened the wax, and read the letter. Exeter's eyes grew. He kept muttering "No." and "Not at a time like this." Exeter locked eyes with me. "Follow." he said. I followed him up to the Venture Observatory. Hael Storm was looking out of the telescope. He was murmuring the same things as Duke. He invited Duke to look. Duke gasped and moved the telescope up and down. He looked away. His murmuring was not understandable now. He looked at me. His eyes said "Look though the telescope." I looked. I looked again. Were my eyes messing with me? Through the Telescope was a Maelstrom Spider. But not any Maelstrom Spider. The Telescope's descriptions that it was telling said the Spider was as tall as Nexus Tower. It was moving forward very slowly. Its missiles locked on the Tower. "Its grown." Said Hael. "I remember it well. That is the father of the Maelstrom. The First Stromling. THAT is the Spider Boss."